Expensive Hobbies

My Brother in Law has a real dry sense of humor.

When Big Sis comes home from shopping, he looks at her and asks "How much money did you save us?"

The net effect of shopping for ANYTHING is that money leaves your bank account, never to be seen again.

For me, both photography and guitars tends to be pretty expensive hobbies, but, I must say, the guitars I have are nice but really inexpensive as guitars go.

At a guitar show in Tampa a few years ago a representative for Paul Reed Smith guitars tried to hand me a Carlos Santana model electric guitar to try out. (I got to meet guitar designer/builder Paul Smith himself and talk with him, which was really cool, but another story.)

It truly scared me and I quickly backed away. Too timid for that kind of outrageously expensive guitar.

I was still very much a beginner at guitar at the time and was not prepared to try out guitars in public, a very crowded guitar show, and on an amp. But what scared the heck out of me was the price tag on the Santana guitar.

The list price of a PRS guitar made exactly like the ones Carlos Santana plays was $10,000 at the time. Even if the "street price" was a mere $8,000, I backed away from the man while holding up my hands in denial. I couldn't even get myself to hold the guitar, much less try to play it.

Really, really expensive things has that effect on me.

In the world of photography, today, Leica, the super-expensive but absolutely fantastically built/made German camera maker, released a new digital rangefinder camera called the M9.

The street price of the M9 is estimated to be around $8,000 to $10,000.

That's for the camera body only. No lens included.

Add one of the equally precious new Leica lenses to the M9 and you'll be paying out around $13,000 to $15,000.

One camera body with one lens or pay cash for a new car?

Rich people have such tough choices. Though I realize that if one can easily afford a $15,000 camera/lens, then they won't be driving a $15k car, but you get my meaning.

A couple of months ago, I bought a new Nikon camera body, and once I was satisfied that it worked well in all respects, I sold my older camera body on ebay.

Total price for the new camera body after subtracting what I got for the sale of the old one, about $450.

I still feel guilty about that too.

Then Leica comes along and releases a new $8,000 camera body.

And I suddenly don't feel so bad about spending the $450-$500 on my own new camera.

Thanks Leica!

Like when we were kids. If one of us said, "My arm hurts." one of the other kids might stomp your foot and say, "There, that takes your mind off of your hurting arm doesn't it?"

Same principle.